I'm back! Bring it on 2014!

I decided to give blogging a try again. I had one once and had fun writing in it for a while. As I was starting my chiropractic practice, I simply didn't feel like I had the time to maintain the blog consistently and adequate enough for my readers. Now that things have settled down a bit, I have decided to give blogging a second attempt. I know you are excited, but seriously, don't expect any amazing fireworks.

So let's fill you in about what has been going on for the past year. Here's the quick version. I graduated from chiropractic college in August of 2012. Then Kimi and I moved to Springfield, MO at the beginning of September only a few weeks later. I spent the following four months setting up my practice and officially accepted my first patient on January 15, 2013. That means I am now only 10 days away from finishing my first full year of practice. My first year went by really quickly and I have had a lot of fun meeting a lot of new and interesting people. For the first 4 months of the year, my wife Kimi (who also has a blog: runner4life-seekimirun.blogspot.com) was finishing physical therapy school at Rockhurst Univerisity. She graduated in May, took a job at Mercy Hospital, passed her boards in July, and started working in August. Ahh, what a relief it is. 

I had a great year of running to go with the rest of the events of the year. I only managed 2600 miles compared to my 3004 miles in 2012. In June, Kimi and I decided to go to Duluth, MN for the Grandma's Marathon and the U.S.A. Half Marathon Championships. I ran the full marathon while Kimi ran the half champs. It was an awesome experience. I prepared for this marathon much better than I did for my first two and it showed with my finishing results. I ran about 18 and a half minutes faster than my previous best. My time was a whopping 2:39:50. Unfortunately, I was spent mentally and physically after my marathon for what felt like the rest of the year. I still had a pretty good day in November when I ran the Bass Pro Cohick half marathon for the 3rd straight year. I simply felt a little unprepared compared to my 2012 race where I ran my personal best of 1:12:58. This year I ran 1:14:24. Still a great time for me but hopefully 2014 I will recapture my late 2012 form. 

So what is the goal for 2014? I'm so glad you asked. Kimi and I are doing our best to train for another marathon or two this year. We will start the year off right by training hard (even if some of it has to be on the treadmill due to weather) to prepare for Rock the Parkway in KC in April. That will be our first real chance to measure our fitness level coming out of the winter. Our big goal this year is to improve both of our marathon bests. I want to break 6 minute pace in the marathon which would put me at a sub 2:37:30. In order to do that, we are going to travel back to Duluth, MN in June for the Grandma's Marathon again. This time, however, Kimi will be running in the marathon also (I sure hope she doesn't pass me at the end.) With some highly focused training, she will hopefully get her Olympic trials qualifying standard.  We haven't fully decided what our racing plan will be for the second half of the year. Most of that depends on how the first 6 months of the year go.

2014  

Total Mileage Goal: 3,000 miles again

Marathon: sub 2:37:30

Half Marathon: Sub 1:13:00

5k: sub 16:00 (this one still eludes me)